


You Okay?

by theredhoodie



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 22:26:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2325386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They looked normal. Like they hadn't spent a night killing culebra in Mexico three weeks ago and like Richie wasn't a nationally wanted thief and Kate wasn't a preacher's daughter, seventeen and way out of her league.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Okay?

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little cute AU thing I just had to get down. Nothing really happens, you don't need to know any significant backstory to get it. Just...letting off some creative steam!
> 
> Part of this is slightly inspired by DJ and Zane's trip to Europe and the other part is inspired by Daughter's "Still" and "Touch". Anyway. Enjoy!

"Anywhere you wanna go," he said, standing beside her, a world map spread across the table. The corners of it hung off the sides.

Kate's teeth sunk into her bottom lip. "Anywhere?" She quirked an eyebrow and glanced up at him.

He raised his own eyebrows and nodded a fraction of an inch in affirmation.

Kate turned back to the table and closed her eyes. "Hmm…" She leaned forward and pressed her fingertips against the table, gently running them over the map. She smiled as her fingers slipped over the folding creases. "Here." She opened her eyes and focused on her right index finger.

"There?" he repeated, eyebrows moving farther up his forehead to an almost inhumanly possible angle.

A tinge of red settled on her cheeks. "There," she said with a nod.

8

"This is amazin'," Kate said, grabbing onto Richie's arm and sinking lavender painted nails into his forearm.

"It's an airport," Richie pointed out.

"But in France," she insisted, a grin splitting across her face. "You promised me we're goin' to the Louvre, right? And the Eiffel Tower. And the Pantheon! Could we see the Luxembourg Gardens?"

"We can do whatever you want."

Kate bit down on her cheek and gripped Richie's arm even tighter. "I can't believe that I'm in Paris," she whispered, tugging down on his arm. She had worn comfortable shoes on the flight, which meant flat bottoms, which meant she was annoying shorter than Richie.

"You don't have to whisper," he said back in a lower voice.

He was teasing her, obviously. She frowned and pinched his side, removing her nails from his arm and crossing her own. "Don't mock me," she frowned. "I'm not used to being around a millionaire." She whispered it furiously this time.

"Shhhh," he said softly, pushing her forward with a hand on her back.

8

"I wish Seth were here," Kate said, tossing her bag down on the floor. Even their hotel was fancier than anywhere she'd ever been. She went on a vacation in California with her family when she was fourteen, but even that hotel had nothing on this. There were gold moldings and a crystal chandelier in the hotel room, a kitchen and a separate living room.

Richie shrugged and walked over to the large window and balcony that overlooked a courtyard and gardens. "He's trying to work things out with Vanessa."

"Yeah mean…" Kate crossed her arms and walked over to the window, moving to stand beside him. She nudged him with her elbow. "You mean that Seth is bailin' her out of jail for givin' you two up. Somehow, considerin' you're wanted for robbery and murder and…that's what he's doin' to work things out."

Richie sighed. "You really know how to drag down a party, Kate."

She couldn't help but smile and leaned forward, resting against the wrought iron bannister. "I'm just statin' the obvious."

"Do I need to state the obvious?" Richie countered.

Kate looked over her shoulder at him. He looked good. More than good, he looked content. His mind was clear, free of any of Santanico's control, he was no longer crazy, and all of that culebra bullshit was behind them.

He didn't need to state the obvious: that she was traveling around the world with a bank robber and murderer. She didn't hold the death of Monica against him; he had been under Santanico's control, it hadn't been his fault. She understood, and she didn't have clean hands either.

Kate looked back out over the expanse of European soil in front of her. "No, you don't," she said softly before she pushed herself away from the window and back into the room. "You should take me out to dinner."

"It's three in the afternoon."

"I'm hungry. Time zones," Kate said flippantly. She moved through the apartment sized hotel room and leaned back against the front door. "Come on, Richard, take me out. We're in Paris." She grinned and watched him turn around, his figure dark against the light coming from behind him. He tilted his head back and to the side like he always did when she perplexed him.

"Okay, fine."

8

They had twenty million dollars, split between Seth and Richie. None of it was Kate's, but they were taking care of her. So the food, the wine, the hotel room…everything was paid for. Richie didn't flash the money around, he only bought as much as a mildly upper class American citizen could afford. He once explained full tactics to her about the right way to deal with money, with so much math and so many equations that it gave her a headache.

The first night in Paris, Kate was so exhausted that she fell dead asleep at seven at night. She was used to sleeping in the same room as both Seth and Richie. Usually Seth took the couch, and she and Richie took the beds. Before Mexico, she would have gotten overly concerned with sleeping and living in hotel rooms with two grown men, but neither of them had ever done anything to her. Richie scared her weeks ago, but that was just an initial impression and that had changed. She felt safer with the Gecko brothers than she ever had with her father or her family or Kyle.

They didn't dress like tourists. Kate had a new wardrobe, a new lease on life after leaving her old life behind. So she was wearing a flowery dress, the kind that was shorter in the front than the back and hung off her shoulders like silk. She loved the way it swished around her thighs and tugged in the wind. They fit into the crowd in every way but being fluent in the language.

She kept her hand slipped around his arm as they walked through the metro and up to the surface toward the Louvre. It was busy, as usual, so Kate clung close to Richie and kept step beside him through the museum. Her heels were strappy and more comfortable than they looked. A plus side was that they made her a few inches taller.

"Can we spend all day here?" she asked once they moved through the Greek statue section of the museum.

"Days," Richie emphasized. "Technically, we can spend days here and still not see everything to its true potential."

Kate leaned close and tilted her head up, staring at the marble carvings that were so real it was unfathomable to think that they were made of stone and not real flesh and bone. "You bought us one way tickets, didn't you?"

Richie let out a laugh through his nose, the corners of his lips curving upward. "You're already getting used to having money, aren't you?"

"It's not mine," Kate pointed out, voice slightly sing-song toned.

"Doesn't matter," Richie said. "It suits you."

"Money suits me? Thanks?" She tugged at his arm, moving him toward the Italian spaces, where there was an enormous crowd in row upon row of tourists lined up in front of the Mona Lisa.

"That's it?" Richie asked, frowning. He could see over the crowds, Kate could barely skim over the heads of most of them.

"It's so tiny," Kate said with an equal frown. "I wonder if it would be better up close."

Richie shrugged. "I'm unimpressed," he said simply.

Kate nearly snorted, covering it up with a laugh. "The Mona Lisa is a worldwide treasure, Richie. Be nice."

He made a face and looked down at her. "I don't need to be nice."

Kate raised her eyebrows. "You should try it." Richie let out a breath through his nose and looked back across the crowds at the painting. "C'mon, let's go see if the second floor's got anythin' more impressive."

8

They spent three days going through the Louvre. Not everything was worth spending intricate hours analyzing, but many of it was worth seeing multiple times, to spend multiples of minutes overlooking details and wondering just how on earth people could be so artistic. Kate wasn't sure what she was good at, art, dancing, sports, she really had no talents so openly known.

By the end of the third night, she had a strong glass of wine and spent the whole ride and walk back to the hotel with her fingers laced through Richie's much larger and more dangerous ones. She leaned against him in the elevator and closed her eyes, her head resting against his shoulder. "Thank you, Richie," she mumbled softly.

"For what?" he asked, voice low.

"For keepin' me safe. For takin' me to Paris. And, y'know, for not killin' me," she added.

Richie's mouth turned up in a soft smile. "I would never have hurt you," he said, removing his fingers from hers and slipping his arm around her shoulders. "You were always different."

"Hmm? What does that mean?" She took a step to the side and looked up at him. "What does that mean?" she repeated, her voice a little sturdier. The elevator stopped and the doors dinged open.

"You're different, in a good way," he emphasized without his usual tact. "Y'know, don't worry about it."

Kate shook her head even though it made her vision swim. "No, you have to tell me."

"You won't remember, even if I told you," he said, helping her out of the elevator.

He kept his arm around her and helped her along in her heels. Their room was close to the elevator, and she leaned against the wall and pet the wallpaper gingerly. "I wonder if Scott is still alive," she said softly, eyes heavy lidded.

Richie pushed the door open and looked over at her. He blinked and moved to take her arm in his hand, pulling her away from the wall. "Don't, Kate," he warned, taking her into the room.

She plopped down on the end of her bed and tried to fumble with her sandals. Richie pushed the door shut and knelt down in front of her. "I can't sleep in my dress," she mumbled, flopping back as Richie unstrapped her shoes and pulled them off.

"You can sleep in your dress," Richie countered.

Kate shook her head and rolled to the edge of the bed. Her world rotated around and she squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't know how her Daddy did it, how he could drink all of the time and still function even a little bit. "I can't," she said, standing and stumbling, reaching out a hand to steady herself against the bed. She turned around and pulled her hair over one shoulder, staring at the painting on the wall behind her headboard. "Richie," she said impatiently, stomping her foot.

A few elongated seconds later, she felt his hands brush against the base of her neck and the tiny hidden zipper was pulled down to her waist. She let her hair down and stumbled almost immediately. Richie took a step back. The dress pooled down to the floor and she sat back on the edge of the bed. "Oof," she breathed out, her skin flushed from the wine.

"You okay?" he asked, standing high above her.

"Yeah," she said. If only they had a swimming pool, they'd have an almost identical situation to the first time they met. Once again, he was fully dressed and she was wearing very little. He was overly tall and she felt out of her element. But she wasn't going to get confident this time. She just wanted to sleep.

"Okay," he said softly, just as she wriggled around in her bed, pulling down the covers and getting comfortable. Once the world stopped swirling and twisting around her, she lay on her side and stretched her arms out against the mattress.

"Thank you, Richie," she repeated in a breathy voice.

8

They still hadn't made it to the Eiffel Tower. Every night Kate was too tired to go out, and she spent every waking minute in the Louvre or at a restaurant since they got here.

Day four meant Eiffel Tower and Champ de Mars. Lots of walking and gazing and Kate forced Richie to buy a revamped version of a Polaroid camera. She snapped photos of everything and everyone, including Richie and herself. She had a pile of photos in her purse halfway through the day and they hadn't even made it up to the Tower.

"I forgot to mention somethin'," Kate said as they stood in the elevator to get to the top.

"What?" Richie asked, a spike of alarm in his voice.

She glanced up at him. "I'm kinda scared of heights." She could see the relief escape his body at her miniscule confession. "But, I mean…this's gonna be okay, right? They have barriers?"

"You won't go flying off the Tower, if that's what you're worried about," he said.

"Catch me if I do?" she asked, eyes stuck on the ground that was getting farther and farther away.

Richie ran his hand down her arm, fingertips brushing down the light sweater she had pulled over her arms. He slipped his fingers around her hand, the pads of his fingers pressing against the middle of her palm. "Yeah, sure," he said, like it was nothing.

8

Kate sat on the grass, laying out the Polaroid's around her. She kept her legs tucked under, since her Paris wardrobe was nothing but dresses and heels and a few pairs of flats. She didn't like feeling so short, but she wore ballet flats today because she knew how much walking they would be doing.

Richie walked over and sat opposite her, folding up his long limbs somehow gracefully. "Havin' fun?"

Kate glanced up at him with a warm smile and then looked back at the photographs. They weren't any high quality things she could print again, but the memories were enough. "Yep," she said, moving the photos around into piles of places and piles of people. Namely Richie and some of Kate.

"Wanna get lunch soon?" he asked, pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah," she said, nodding. She grabbed the camera and launched herself at him, knocking him over and back against the grass.

"Hey, what—" Richie fell back, his hands automatically circling around her waist.

Kate chuckled and turned over onto her back, laying half on top of him. "C'mon, Richie, we don't have one good picture of us together and we're on this vacation together." She grinned and held the camera up.

"Your arms are too short," Richie exasperated at her physical incompetence after a moment, taking the camera in hand and rolling his eyes.

"You better not make any weird faces," she said, moving her elbow close to his side and jabbing back into his side, against his ribs. "C'mon, if you laugh it'll look more natural." Kate smiled wide. "Hit the button and just think of monkeys robbing a bank."

Richie half frowned, half laughed and his finger clicked down on the camera button. The white-framed photograph slid out of the bottom and Kate snatched it, taking the camera also and laying it gently against the grass next to her thigh.

"I don't like pictures being taken of me," Richie confessed.

"That'd be the criminal background, right?" Kate asked, keeping her head resting half against his chest and half against his upper arm.

"Yeah."

"Do you really like robbin' banks that much? Would you ever steal…paintin's? Or artifacts?" she asked, genuinely interested. She made sure not to wave around the photograph, not wanting the colors to smear.

"Seth enjoys the thrills. I enjoy it, too," he explained, not moving to break them apart. In fact, he actually let his arm fall around her middle and it rested there warm and heavy. She didn't mind. "I also enjoy actually using the money. Seth is a hoarder."

"But isn't he using his money to get Vanessa out of jail?"

Richie sighed. "Yeah. He loves her more after the divorce than he ever did when they were married."

Kate closed her eyes. "I don't understand that."

"You believe in love." Statement, not question, in that same tone he used when he was talking to her in the back of the Twister down in Mexico.

"I used to think so," Kate said quietly after a moment. She opened her eyes and lifted the Polaroid to her line of sight. Her eyes focused on the image. It was clearer than the original Polaroid's ever were, and it was actually happy. They looked…normal. Like they hadn't spent a night killing culebra in Mexico three weeks ago and like Richie wasn't a nationally wanted thief and Kate wasn't a preacher's daughter, seventeen and way out of her league.

"And now?"

"I dunno," she said, frowning and lifting the photo higher in the air, attempting to move it so that he could see. "What do you think?"

He lifted his arm from around her torso and plucked the photo out of her hand. He didn't answer and the seconds slipped by to sixty.

"Richie?" Kate pushed herself off of him and dug her elbow into the grass, looking down at him. He moved his arm, now free from Kate's weight, under his head like a pillow. He was staring at the photograph. "You okay?"

He blinked slow and long and when he opened his eyes he was looking at her face. "Yeah," he said. "You look nice."

Kate tilted her head and plucked the photograph from his hand. She looked at it under her own shadow. "You're smilin'. Did you like my joke?"

"Monkeys robbing a bank?" He scoffed. "That supposed to be a jab at me and Seth?"

Kate wrinkled her nose. "What? No. It just popped in my head."

Richie chuckled and squinted his eyes against the sun. They didn't say anything, and it was normal and nice and serene. Everything was green grass and clear skies and a photo of Richie Gecko smiling for the ages.

"You hungry?" he asked finally, his hand resting over his heart against his chest.

Kate nodded. "Yeah. Let's go." She moved quickly, grabbing his hand and half standing, half pulling him to a sitting position. She gathered up her photos and shoved them in her purse, handed Richie the hefty camera and grabbed his hand again, tugging him between concrete benches.

8

The Tower lit up at night, flickering and shining like a beacon in the darkness. Kate ate a hefty dinner and had only one glass of wine, so she was a lot less drunk than before and she just felt sort of happy and floaty.

"Looks like fairy lights," she commented, her hand pretty comfortable pressed against Richie's by now.

"There's no such thing as fairies."

Kate laughed. "There ain't no such things as vampires either, right?" she teased, looking up at him.

He smirked and glanced down at her. "Right," he said slowly.

She squeezed his hand and grinned, leaning against him more and tilting her head back to see to the tippety-top of the Tower. It was much more impressive than the Mona Lisa, or maybe that was the wine talking. She didn't know why she liked drinking so much, considering how much she disliked her father doing it. It made her feel lighter and less of a preacher's daughter. She had to walk away from that life, because there was no way she could go back. She had to change her life completely. And this was just the beginning. Baby steps, Kate, she kept telling herself.

"You don't scare me anymore," she murmured once the lights died down, the repetition of them growing fuzzy in her vision. "You never really scared me," she corrected herself. "Except maybe at the pool when you said those things. And when you almost shot my brother…" This wasn't going where she wanted it to go. "I mean…" She used their joined hands to swing around gracefully and stood in front of him, "I mean, you haven't scared me in a long time. I know what you've done. And it wasn't your fault."

"Thanks," he said, though it wasn't to brush her off. She knew by how just how quirky he actually was when it came to just being himself. Not being Richie Gecko the bank robber and kidnapper, but just being Richie Gecko. He was different; philosophical and quiet, but passionate about the oddest things like Mexican food and movies.

She smiled, one that brought warmth to her eyes. "C'mon. There's a hotel bed calling my name and we've gotta take the metro back," she said, taking a step back and to the side, tugging on his arm gently.

Richie took a fleeting look back up at the Tower before he nodded and followed her to the path.

The city was a maze, but Richie's mind worked in wondrous ways and he could always figure out where they needed to go. So he showed her the way and she slept against his shoulder on the train, forever feeling safer next to a known murderer and culebra killer than with anyone else, especially considering the creeps on the metro.

There was a station to get off close to the hotel. Kate yawned and stretched and did her best not to lean on him too much on the way across and down the street. Even though it was getting completely comfortable and familiar to just be close to him, to be warm and safe. She always felt a little uncomfortable around Seth. Safe, but uncomfortable because he liked being close, stepping into her personal bubble of space. But Richie? He never did that, at least, not unless she invaded his space first, which he didn't seem to have any issues with.

"What do you think, a movie?" Kate asked in the elevator. "Somethin' American with really bad French voiceovers?" The corner of her lips curled up in a teasing smirk.

"No, don't respect American film making like that," he said, mortally offended.

"Okay, okay," she chuckled as the elevator stopped and the doors opened. "What should we do?"

"I thought you were tired," Richie pointed out as they walked down the hall. She leaned against the wall and waited for him to open the door like usual.

"I am. But not sleep tired," Kate sighed, rolling her eyes. She slipped inside and leaned against the sturdy table, pulling off her heels and looking over at Richie as he walked farther into the room. "So what should we do? Technically we can watch movies. I'm sure there's gotta be American ones here somewhere. I mean, this is a really fancy hotel."

"You know there's a pool here?" he asked. She walked closer to the beds and crossed her arms, her bare feet sinking into the soft-as-kittens carpet.

"I guess I should have known," she shrugged a shoulder. They hadn't spent a lot of time in the hotel besides to sleep and eat breakfast. "Are you sayin' we should…go…"

She trailed off, feeling very much her age. She couldn't help it. She and Richie had lived a very modest life here for the past few days, and back in the States too. She couldn't help her reaction to Richie pulling off his shirt in the middle of the room, dim and yet just enough light for her to see everything.

And by everything, there was the curve of his spine and the dips in his lower back that she could just see over the waistband of his jeans. Oh and the definition of his shoulderblades was pretty nice. And then he turned around and Kate raised his eyebrows.

"Go to the pool?" she squeezed out. He had abs, like actual abs, and everything was so…so much more than any church boys she saw in the lake back in Texas.

"Yeah," he said with a nod.

She blinked slowly and swallowed. "Or…you could just stay right there for like…a minute," she said, trying desperately not to let her eyes slide down to the well defined hip muscles that created a deep v that dipped below his pants.

Richie raised an eyebrow and glanced down and then back at Kate. "You okay?" he asked, humor laced in the simple words growing familiar between them.

"I'm okay," she said with a nod, dropping her hands to her sides and taking a step closer.

"Are you sure? You look pretty flushed."

Kate swallowed and stopped a foot away from him. So there were some advantages to being short. "At the risk of soundin' like a total teenager, you've always been able to see who I really am. I think that's important," she said, lifting her hand and pressing it over his sternum. She could feel his heart beat against her palm.

"Yeah. You've been able to see me, too," he said, voice all kinds of low and sexy, or maybe that was just Kate's hormones clouding her judgment.

"Yeah," Kate said, glancing up at him in the dim light. "I guess so." She lifted her other hand and pressed it against his abdomen. "Just…stay still a minute." She blamed the wine for her lack of inhibitions, the way she ran her hands over his skin and didn't even feel embarrassed. "Are you feeling what I'm feeling?" she asked after a minute.

"I dunno. You're doing all the feeling," Richie said. She wasn't sure if he was trying to be funny, but she couldn't help but let a laugh slip out between her lips.

"That is true," Kate said, moving her hands from his sides to his wrists, stepping closer and putting his hands on her hips. She looked up at him then and the air filled with a buzzing tension that could have been cut with a knife. Or even a spoon. "I don't feel so lost anymore, y'know."

She wasn't quite over anything that happened. About her brother disappearing into a monster, about having to kill her father…it wasn't something she had faced yet, and she didn't want to. And, for the moment, Richie felt a bit like home, or at least, he felt something like home, something she could use to mask the things she was missing.

"Good," Richie said, moving one hand lower, pulling her closer, his fingertips dipping into her skin through her thin dress. "'Cause I feel kinda lost again."

He didn't have many scars, not as many as Seth, or so Kate guessed since seeing Seth shirtless wasn't something that ever happened, but she could still feel the slightly raised and smoothed scars against his flesh. The most prominent one was the bullet wound on Richie's hand that she felt rough against her soft skin. She slid her hands up his arms and rested her palms against his shoulders.

"You don't have to be lost, Richie. You've got me." She said it childishly, leaning up on her tippy toes. Her eyes settled on his lips. "You should really kiss me right now," she breathed out.

He pulled her closer against him and leaned down to press his lips to hers. It wasn't like before. It was lingering and Kate found herself pulling him down to her, circling her arms around his neck, pressing herself against his naked torso. It was nothing like kissing Kyle. The sparks that erupted in the core of her was nothing like she'd ever felt before and this was just one simple kiss.

She was young but also wise beyond her years. He was older, but she didn't know if he was wise or just a tragic genius. Whatever it was, the way he wrapped his arms around her and stole her breath was something otherworldly. He kissed her long and then again and again, shorter, but not enough to let her catch her breath. His lips were soft and she was left with the taste of cigarettes on her tongue even though he hadn't smoked since before they had eaten lunch.

She breathed out his name and took in a short breath, moving her hands down his arms again, circling her fingers around the crook of his arms.

"You okay?" he asked.

She couldn't help but smile. If they could have a thing it would definitely be that simple two-word phrase. "Yeah," she said, sliding her hands around the back of his arms. "Close your eyes."

He didn't hesitate like before, back in the RV, weeks ago. He closed is eyes and Kate took a step back out of his grasp. The dress she wore today was more t-shirt material, black with big white and yellow flowers printed on it. She pulled off the white knit sweater cover her arms and didn't allow herself to think before she pulled off her dress, leaving her in a bra and panties. She was half naked in a tiny frame, her hair loose around her face, innocent swimming all around her. And Richie…well, he looked like one of those exquisite sculptures at the Louvre.

Kate stepped closer and reached up to remove his glasses. She didn't know why. She liked them a lot, but glasses and kissing had to get in the way, right? Or maybe she was just hoping he could see a little less with them. She had seen almost all of Santanico's body just from the dance at the Twister, and Kate looked nothing like that. She was all pale skin and modest curves.

"What're you doing?" Richie asked, though he didn't open his eyes. Kate moved to put his glasses on the table between the two beds. And then she took a deep breath. Her heart hammered against her ribcage. She was very glad he was still covered from the waist down. Just thinking about all of this made her feel more scared than she had ever been with a gun pointed at her during the trip to Mexico. She thanked the wine for dulling her overactive mind.

Kate didn't reply, only walking close again, so close she could feel his body heat against her skin. She took his hands again and placed them on the dip of her waist, a chill skimming across her skin at the contact.

Richie's eyes fluttered open and he looked down at her. "Kate…" he said it warningly, maybe to himself, maybe to her, she couldn't tell.

She rested one arm against the inner curve of his elbow and the other slid up over his chest. "I'm not…sleeping with you," she said firmly, pushing herself up to her toes again, "but I still want you to keep kissing me."

He blinked and calculated, she could almost see the equations flickering across his eyes. And then he nodded a little and she hooked her arm around his neck. They kissed a little harder than before and Kate's heart hammered louder and harder whenever their skin touched. Almost all of her was virgin territory. No one had ever touched her the way Richie was, his hands moving up her spine and around her hips.

They somehow ended up on her bed, Kate with her back against the duvet, one of her arms circling around Richie's ribcage. She dug her fingertips into his skin because she liked the feeling and he didn't stop her. He gripped her waist and their legs tangled together; hers bare, his wrapped up in cumbersome jeans. And then he moved his lips down her chin and kissed her neck under her ear and Kate felt fireworks and chills up and down her body like jolts of lightning and she gasped out breaths of air and the occasional "Oh my God" that seemed ironically appropriate for the situation with the tiny gold cross that settled against the base of her throat.

He eventually made his way back to her lips just when she was getting to a point of not even being able to understand what she was feeling. "Richie," she said softly, between kisses. He was that much taller than her that he barely had to stretch to move his hand down her thigh and behind her knee, hooking her leg over his hip and half pressing her down against the mattress. "I think…" the words were stolen by another kiss and Kate couldn't help but get lost in it, running her fingers through his hair and feeling every nerve of hers on fire.

"Mmmm?" Richie mumbled something against her lips she didn't catch.

Kate moved her hands against his shoulders, even though she didn't want to. And then she did something that she wasn't entirely sure about, but the wine was still thrumming through her veins and she went for it. It was actually pretty easy to push him back against the mattress and she found herself on top of him, her knees sinking into the bed on either side of him. He actually had a soft look of surprise on his face as Kate pressed her palms against his collarbone gently, a waterfall of hair falling in the space between them.

She wasn't going to lie, she loved the feeling, the way his hands settled on her hips and she could feel him dip farther into the mattress when she leaned down and kissed him, long and hard. "I think," she said against his lips, "we should stop." The words fell heavy and she sat back a little more. She was pretty sure that the both of them realized the implications of her words. "Before you make me start rethinking my religion," she added, a small smile dancing across her face.

Richie's chest rose and fell and he squeezed her thighs under his hands before he nodded. "Okay, you're probably right," he said, folding to her so easily.

Kate was actually surprised. Pleasantly. This could have been a terrible idea on her part—since how well did she really know the man she was currently straddling on a hotel room in Paris?—but he was kinder than most teenage boys she knew.

"Sorry," she said softly, removing herself from towering over him and leaning back against the headboard next to him. The duvet was pretty crumpled and wrinkled just from all the rolling around they had been doing.

"Kate," Richie sounded almost offended again. Kate bent her right leg up and wrapped her arms around it, resting her chin against her knee. "You don't have to ever apologize for anything you do."

Kate arched an eyebrow, tilting her head to the side to look over and down at him. He reached a hand out and dragged his fingers down her leg and circled her lower shin above her ankle with his hand. "Anythin'?" she teased.

"Mostly anything," he corrected. "Can I have my glasses back?"

Kate let go of her leg and retrieved his glasses from the table that she was nearest to. She handed them over and he slipped them on. He looked so much better with them on, but she would never actually tell him that. Richie then joined her against the headboard, looking not very subtly up and down her scantly clad form now that he could see more clearly.

"Are you tired now?" he asked. She had completely forgotten about the jetlag and the tiredness she'd felt back at the Tower. And the pool suggestion hat had started all of this.

"Kind of," she said with a slight shrug. But sleeping would require moving and getting dressed in pajamas. Her skin still felt like it was burning and she swore she could see electrical currents crackling across the places Richie touched, which was a lot of places. She didn't want to lose that feeling just yet.

Richie moved quickly and smoothly for someone so tall, off the bed and to his feet. "We should sleep. Don't you want to go to the gardens tomorrow?" He looked over at her, twisting his torso to do so. Kate could feel the lines of his muscles against her hands like ghosts or afterthoughts.

Kate bit down on her bottom lip and nodded. She watched Richie disappear into the bathroom around the corner and she let out a heavy breath. Her entire body was still thrumming. She flexed her fingers and shook her head, running her hands through her hair. It took her a full minute before she moved off of the bed and over to her suitcase. She unzipped it to find her usual t-shirt and soft sleeping shorts, since sleeping in a bra was so uncomfortable, she doubted she would do that again unless she was desperately drunk.

She quickly took her bra off and slid into the shirt and then into the shorts. By the time Richie returned, she felt a little cooled off and had pulled her hair back in a lazy French braid. All of their stuff was in the bathroom, so she moved into the room, washed her face and brushed her teeth before telling herself everything was fine. In the main room, the lights were off minus the lamp between the two beds.

Kate didn't even try straightening out the duvet, only pulling it up so she wasn't pinned down to the mattress and climbing under. She lay on her said and squeezed her eyes shut so she didn't have to look at him. She was growing too comfortable and reliant on him always being there right next to her. This had to be some grand case of Stockholm syndrome that she was experiencing, but she couldn't care less about trying to do something about it.

Richie flicked off the light once he was sitting on the edge of his bed. She listened to his rustle around under the covers and then silence and darkness slid into the room. "Richie?" Kate said after a good five minutes passed. She wasn't sure if he fell asleep that fast.

"Yeah?" he replied, his voice small in the dark room.

"I don't want you to get any ideas," she started.

"Oh, I already have ideas," Richie interrupted.

Kate was glad it was dark, because she blushed like a schoolgirl and thought about going back on her request. But she couldn't. Not with Richie. "I just…I like havin' you close. You're warm," she said lamely. She scrunched up her nose and buried her face in her pillow.

She didn't hear him moving. "Come here," he said. Her eyes were adjusting to the light, and the lack of it, but she could see that he had flipped open the covers for her.

Kate took in a deep breath. She was a big girl, she could do this. "Do you promise not to try anything?"

"Kate," he said, annoyed that she would even have to ask something like that.

She sighed and nodded, coaxing herself out of her cocoon. Her feet touched the carpet and she walked the few feet between the mattresses. She tentatively sat on the edge of his. She could already feel the difference in the air. It was so much warmer here. She sucked in a breath and picked her feet up and laid herself down. He dropped the covers over her and she was encased in fresh sheets and the warmth of Richie and his scent, which was familiar by now, all cigarettes and polished steel with hints of something that reminded her of Mexico.

"Are you good now?" he asked once she settled back and rolled onto her side because she loved sleeping on her side, no matter where she was sleeping. She had a whole Queen sized bed at this hotel and yet she only slept in a tiny Kate-sized portion of it.

"Yeah," she said softly. He didn't touch her, but she could tell that he wanted to. Or, she hoped he wanted to because she wanted him to. But she didn't ask him. She was actually kind of scared of the consequences of pushing her luck. Instead, he settled himself on the other side of the bed, and he didn't complain.

Silence fell on the room again and then she had to break it, because she was Kate and she had to make sure everything was happy, that everyone was doing okay, no matter the situation. It was just how her mind worked. "Thank you," she said again.

Richie chuckled lightly and shifted on the mattress. She caught a flash of his eyes looking at her in the darkness. She wondered how much he could actually see. "For what?"

"For just…being," she said softly, a final rush of wine making her not care again. "Thank you."

Richie was quiet for a few more seconds. "Goodnight, Kate."

Kate closed her eyes tight and shoved her arm under the pillow and rested the other under her cheek. "Goodnight, Richie," she whispered back.

**Author's Note:**

> This was only edited by me twice, so all mistakes are my own and I'm sorry!


End file.
